Last week we began, what will probably be our most controversial sermon series of my entire tenure as the lead pastor of our church body. I have talked many times on the topics that we’ll cover in this series with our youth, and so, because they are topics that are rooted in our faith, we’re going to talk about them here.
This series is focused on those topics that the 21st century Church tends side stepped because our society tells us that they are political topics and therefore should not be talked about in a congregational setting. Instead, we’re told that we should just worry ourselves with singing and reading the Bible. But the reality is, God has called us to a holistic faith, which means that we do not just talk about the theology of God, but how that theology works itself out in our lives and society. Jesus states in Matthew 7:24, “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.” And James follows this in the first chapter of his letter, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. (v.22).”
And so, we are talking about these issues that have been wrongfully regulated to the political sphere, instead of their rightful place as issues to be dealt with, by us as Christians, through our faith.
Last week we laid a foundation for this series by recognizing that every issue we talk about, in fact every conflict we encounter, is rooted in the spiritual war that surrounds us. It’s because of this spiritual reality that we must approach every situation with a desire to stand firm in our faith and face these issues and conflicts with a biblical mindset, putting on, as the Scriptures say in Ephesians 6, the whole armor of God. And we must remember that our goal is to not cause unneeded division, but to deal biblically with the issues, drawing closer to God, and standing stronger and more faithful in our faith.
And so let’s get into our second week of the Not Political series, by talking about our first topic. And let’s start this off with a bang shall we? Let’s talk about abortion. Just the word will probably tune some people out. So I want to say this before we really get into it. The purpose of talking about abortion is not to condemn anyone who has had an abortion. If you have had one, or you have encouraged someone else to have one, I want you to know that I believe what God speaks through his word, Romans 5:8 states, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” And in Romans 8:1-2 it reads, “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, 2 because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”
So as we speak about abortion, this is not a talk about how people who have gone through it or have helped others attain one, are going to hell for the sin of abortion, because the reality is, all the sin we do condemns us, but when we accept Jesus as our Savior, repenting of our sin and seeking God’s forgiveness, our sin is placed on him, and we can be fully embrace by the love of God.
But if we shy away from speaking about abortion, then shouldn’t we shy away from talking about all sin? Should we then not speak to the drunkard, or the one who lusts, or to the abuser, or the idolater? We are called to recognize sin and call each other to the ways of God. And so, though we are talking about abortion today, we are not elevating abortion over other sins in an enteral perspective.
With that understanding laid down, let’s talk about the basis of why every Christian needs to reject the act of abortion, and indeed, needs to stand against it in every way. First off, the word abortion does not occur in the Scriptures. But if we take the argument, because it doesn’t use the modern word abortion, therefore it does not prohibit it, this becomes a slippery slope of throwing out other applications of God’s word in the modern world. In fact Jesus’ own application of the ten commandments would have to be thrown out, and if we can can throw out Jesus’ application of God’s Word, then nothing can be kept.
And so we must understand our topic within the ideas put forth by the Scriptures. In doing this, we must start by asking questions of the Scriptures and see how it would address the issue.
First, how does the Bible look at those in the womb?
Job 31:15 reads, “Did not he who made me in the womb make them?
Did not the same one form us both within our mothers?”
That is followed by what the Psalmist wrote in Psalm 139:13-16, "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
This is then followed by what the prophet Jeremiah famously wrote about what God said of him in the fifth verse of his first chapter, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations (1:5).”
And so we can see that from the Scriptures, that God is intimately involved in the making of children within the womb of a woman.
So then what about the injury to such a child? Let’s look at the famous passage that is most associated with the abortion topic which is Exodus 21:22-24, where it reads, “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life, 24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot…”
Here, the phrase “gives birth prematurely” can be translated as miscarriage. Meaning the act of causing the child to, at the least be injured and the most to die, would be grounds for punishment. Depending on the injury, whether an early birth or death of the child, the punishment then follows. What is clear though, is the fact that if the child is killed within it’s mother’s womb, the punishment is death for death. The same punishment the Old Testament gave to any other type of murder.
But is that all the only verse in connection to the death of a child? No, in 2 Kings 15:16, we get this insight into the Israelite king Menahem. It says that, “He sacked Tiphsah and ripped open all the pregnant women.” He does this specifically to kill the children. And we’re told what God thinks of this king two verses later, “And he did what was evil in the sight of the LORD…”
There is a very specific trend within the Scriptures that place a heavy emphasis on children from the womb on up in age, being very dear to God, and acts against children of all ages being condemned, in most circumstances. In fact Jesus states this in Matthew 19:14, “…Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
Why? Because they are innocent in the eyes of God. In fact, commenting on the idea of abortion the Zohar, a Jewish writing from the 12th century AD, states, “…a person who kills the fetus in his wife's womb desecrates that which was built by the Holy One and His craftsmanship (https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/abortion-in-judaism).”
Therefore abortion is a sin because it destroys that which God creates. In fact, this destroying of what God creates is the basis of the sixth commandment in Exodus 20:13, “You shall not murder.” And which is expanded on by passages like Proverbs 6:16-19, where it states there are seven things that are detestable to the Lord, and the third thing that is detestable are “…hands that shed innocent blood…”
Okay, but maybe we are looking into the Scriptures from a modern view, and trying to justify a position against abortion that the Bible doesn’t actually take. It’s to avoid this modern day incursion into the Scriptures, that we are looking to the early Church writers to help us see that the issues we are covering are not modern political ones read into the text, but ones the Church has talked about and has taken position over from it’s beginning.
In the writing called the Didache, which if you are familiar with a prayer book or a catechism, this would be an early version of those, it has two statements on this issue, “…thou shalt not procure abortion, nor commit infanticide…(2:2h)”, and the way of death includes “…murders of children, corrupters of God’s creatures…(5:2)”
Now what’s interesting is that another early writing titled, the “Epistle of Barnabas”, makes the exact same two statements. It’s statements read like this, “… Thou shalt not procure abortion, thou shalt not commit infanticide…(19:5d)”, and “But the Way of the Black One…murders of children, corrupters of God’s creation…(20:2)”
This is interesting, because in translating the “Epistle of Barnabas” Jackson Snyder, in the footnotes of his translation, makes the observation that the Greek word phthoreus (f-th-or-e-us) translated as corrupters, is as he states a “vulgar title referring to a promiscuous person seeking casual relations with the intention of aborting if necessary (“The Epistle of Barnabas: Revised Greek with Hebraic-English Translation,”) (https://books.google.com/books?id=Rt48AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA54&lpg=PA54&dq=phthoreus&source=bl&ots=ChmnypX-Sa&sig=ACfU3U1pCGfmzrBqWC7FoyTk5WdgDCBHyw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit-p6c6fPtAhXRqZ4KHbRMDAsQ6AEwBHoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=phthoreus&f=false).” Meaning, a person who seeks out sexual encounters, and uses abortion to kill the child, corrupts God’s creatures.
In addition, the word procure, has two parts to it. The first part is the person who seeks out the procedure, and the second is a person who helps to connect someone else with that procedure. Meaning, both writings make it clear that we as Christians are not to be the one who seeks the abortion, nor the one that helps with getting an abortion.
In other words, both the Didache and the Epistle of Barnabas come against those that would seek out or help with an abortion, and both use a word to call the act, a corruption of God’s creation. Which we have already seen is in line with both a biblical and Jewish understanding of the harming of the child in the womb.
But that’s not all, quote after quote from many different early Church fathers write on this subject. One of these writers is Tertullian, who wrote two statements on abortion in the first ten years of the 200s AD. He first writes of who Christians are, “In our case, a murder being once for all forbidden, we may not destroy even the fetus in the womb, while as yet the human being derives blood from the other parts of the body for its sustenance. To hinder a birth is merely a speedier man-killing; nor does it matter whether you take away a life that is born, or destroy one that is coming to birth. That is a man which is going to be one; you have the fruit already in its seed (Apology 9:8, AD 200).”
Ten years later Tertullian writes, “Among surgeons’ tools there is a certain instrument, which is formed with a nicely-adjusted flexible frame for opening the uterus first of all and keeping it open; it is further furnished with an annular blade, by means of which the limbs [of the child] within the womb are dissected with anxious but unfaltering care; its last appendage being a blunted or covered hook, wherewith the entire fetus is extracted by a violent delivery… There is also a copper needle or spike, by which the actual death is managed in this furtive robbery of life: they give it, from its infanticide function, the name of…‘the slayer of the infant,’ which of course was alive…They all knew well enough that a living being had been conceived, and pitied this most luckless infant state, which had first to be put to death, to escape being tortured alive… Now we allow that life begins with conception because we contend that the soul also begins from conception; life taking its commencement at the same moment and place that the soul does (On the Soul 25, 27; ca. AD 210).”
It is clear, from biblical teaching and the application of that teaching by the early Church, that the issue of abortion is not a modern day political one, but something the Church has dealt with since it’s inception. And the Church’s stance has been, that abortion is the murdering of an innocent life. A life that was formed by God in the womb, and that the destruction of that life is a sin because it destroys the creative work of God himself.
And Jesus says in Matthew 5:19, “Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.”
As Christians, we must come and make a stand against abortion, just like we must take a stand against every sin. We must seek to never engage in any activity of sin, and when we do, we must repent of it. Because we should be seeking to not set aside even one of the commands of God.
Now, I want to take several moments and address a few arguments that are usually presented, even by Christians, who allow for abortion. The first is this, “I wouldn’t have one, but I can’t stop someone else from having one.” That’s not true, because we do seek to stop sinful acts that come out in our society. Don’t we seek to stop the physical abuser? Don’t we seek to stop the murder rampager? Don’t we seek to stop the drunk driver? Don’t we seek to stop the molester and rapist? If we seek to stop these others, we must seek to stop the killing of children in the womb. The argument does not hold up in light of the Scriptures and their application in other areas of our life.
The second argument is this, “There are not enough people to adopt all these kids.” Let me share the abortion survivor Josiah Presely’s words with you. Josiah was from South Korea. When his biological mother found out that she was pregnant, she tried to have an abortion. It failed, and she put Josiah up for adoption in the U.S. Josiah still carries the scares of the abortion in a deformed left arm. Josiah writes, “I would like to point out a few things. First, do you think that I would have wanted my mother to have that abortion and try to terminate me? Heck no! In fact, when my parents told me that my mother had had an abortion it built up some malice towards my birth mother in me. But I have since gotten over that and come to a place where I have forgiven her, thanks to the Lord. But it also gave me an appreciation for life. God saved me from dying a horrible death before I was even born…I was adopted by a family living in a completely different country. This is for those of you saying ‘well what will happen to the children if we don’t abort them? Their mothers don’t want them.’ Trust me, they will be adopted. My adopted family has twelve children, ten of which were adopted! They will be adopted! I mean, if we would stop funding the stuff to do abortions and put it towards making adoption fees lower, many would adopt because many who want to adopt can’t afford the high adoption fees and therefore can’t adopt. So those children will be adopted. (https://abortionsurvivors.org/josiahs-story/).”
I agree with Josiah’s point, if our adoption laws were changed to be as open as our abortion laws, there would be thousands upon thousands of homes open for the children lost to abortion. Especially as our rates of infertility rise in the western world. A side note here, though the word abortion is not used in the Bible, the word adoption is used several times and all in connection to what God does with us, through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
The third argument I want to address is this, “What about those that are raped, or get pregnant through incest, or what about the health of the mother?” Let me divide that into two parts. First the rape and incest. In 2018 in Florida, the state released the reasons given by the 70,083 people to why they had an abortion that year in the state. If you combine both the rape and incest reasons, the percentage was .15%. To put that into numbers, out of the 70,083 abortions, only about 105 abortions were from these two categories. That’s very very few in the grand scheme of things. If we allowed for these two reasons, could we then not allow for the rest? But to save even those 105, is it right to condemn someone for the sinful acts of another? Ezekiel 18:20 reads, “The one who sins is the one who will die. The child will not share the guilt of the parent, nor will the parent share the guilt of the child. The righteousness of the righteous will be credited to them, and the wickedness of the wicked will be charged against them.”
So why condemn the innocent child, to a death for the evil acts of another? Yes, it will be hard to look at that child’s face and be reminded of the rapist and that moment in time. But every moment of life that child breathes in, is a moment for them to correct the wrongs that brought them into this world.
The second part of that argument about the health of the mother. Again in 2018 in Florida, 3.42% of the respondents gave the mothers health as being the reason they went in for an abortion. That means out of 70,083 abortions, 2,396 were connected to the health of the mother. And out of those, only .27% were due to the actual life of the mother being in jeopardy. That means If we allowed abortion for rape, incest, and the life of the mother being in jeopardy, we could have saved 69,789 children from death just in Florida in 2018. And if we took that to a national level, we could have saved approximately 858,698 children from abortion in 2018 out of the approximately 862,320 that died because of abortion (https://abort73.com/abortion_facts/us_abortion_statistics/).
Now, if you’re in a situation where you have to make a decision between the mother’s life and the child’s, I don’t think anyone can make that decision for you, nor I do not think anyone can look down on you which ever way you go. And there are discussions within the early Church writings concerning this very thing that gives leeway in these decisions. But in those difficult decisions we must seek after God, and trust in him to guide us. I personally have had a talk with my wife and what my decision would be, and that’s between me, her, and God.
One more argument and this one I have heard several times over the years directed at me personally, “You’re a guy and wouldn’t understand.” There are three problems with this argument. First, it’s sexist. To say that a man cannot understand the moral imperative of not aborting a child, speaks to a dismissive attitude that does not want to deal with the sin that abortion is. Secondly, if abortion is wrong, which the Word of God shows it to be, then whether a person is male or female does not matter. Because God’s truth is true whether we want to believe it or not. And thirdly, all I would actually need to counter that argument is to ask a woman to come before us and share that abortion is wrong. Which there are many out there that would, both those that have survived abortion and those that have gone through with an abortion. So all four of these arguments do not hold up in the light of the Scriptures, and the reality of the world around.
But what can we do right now as believers in Christ? What are some real life applications?
First, on an individual level, we must point others away from abortion. We must talk to our kids and grandkids, both boys and girls, about God’s desire for sex within marriage alone, where the children will grow in the best environment they can. If we want to talk about a pandemic, let’s talk about the 85% of abortions happening by unmarried women and 87.9% of those happening by women between the ages of 20 to 39.
Then if these women do get pregnant, and cannot raise a child, we must direct these mothers to adoption agencies. We must support these mothers when others do not. And if they decide to keep the child, we must give support for these mother’s needs, and help them deal with the strains of children. We should be helping each other like this anyway, but it is more needed in situations like this. We must get rid of the stigma within our Christian community of unwed mothers. We must encourage men, who are the fathers, to take ownership and support these mothers. We must be a community open to single mothers, single fathers, adoptive families, and grandparents raising their grandchildren. Was the child most likely conceived in a sinful act, probably, but we must extend grace. We must love them as Christ does, because we want every child to be born and every person to know Jesus as their Savior.
Secondly, as Christians we must apply our biblical calling to our vote. We must vote in those representatives that will hold to a biblical view of the sanctity of life. Now if you just got mad because I said that, do you think I am asking you to vote for a particular political party? If you heard that, which one? Because that might automatically tell you which candidates and which parties you shouldn’t vote for. But hear what I am not saying. I am not saying vote Republican, or Democrat, or Libertarian, or Green Party. In fact, in the decision of Roe v. Wade, which basically allowed for abortions in the U.S., six of the justices were appointed by Republican presidents. The decision was made seven for the legalization to two opposing it. Five of the six Republican appointed justices voted in favor (http://nelsoncountygazette.com/?p=45590). I am not saying we need to vote for Republicans, or any other party, instead, we need to vote for representatives that believe in the biblical understanding of the sanctity of life and will hold to it. That means we need to do our research. We need to know where a representative stands on this issue and reject them if they stand against what God calls us to. This is where the rubber meets the road; this is what we meant when we talked last week about being first a citizen of Heaven.
And so my challenge for you this week, is to first, repent. If you have ever had an abortion, or have ever encouraged someone to have an abortion, or have voted for someone that sought to write laws promoting abortion, or you have condemned a person who has had an abortion dismissing them as not being worthy of Christ’s love, we need to repent of such actions. I say we, because I once held a pro-abortion stance before I came to Christ and I have had to repent of it. But when we repent, we must believe what the Scriptures say. 1st John 1:5-10 states, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. 8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.”
All but one sin is forgiven by God when we confess it to him, because they were dealt with on the cross by Jesus. The repenting and confessing act, simply brings it to the forefront of our relationship with him so that it can be dealt with, which will move us closer into fellowship with him. So we must first repent of the things that God says are sin.
The next part of the challenge is this, pray for the women that are considering an abortion this week. Pray for God’s intercession, that they would be pointed to godly outlets and not sinful ones. And if you can, find a Christian pregnancy clinic and support them prayerfully and/or financially. I did a quick Google search, and found more than 20 just in the Phoenix area.
Being a follower of Jesus, means having our faith work itself out in the world around us. We cannot downplay sinful acts, nor can we simply tell people something is wrong. We must provide for their needs and a righteous pathway that includes pointing them to Jesus as their Savior.
I want to end with this quote from an abortion survivor. In the article “Victim to Victor”, Melissa Ohden writes, "I’ve chosen to find peace with both what I know and what I may never know about all of the circumstances surrounding my survival and adoption. I’ve chosen to find joy amidst the winding, twisting turns of my life that have not always been easy or without suffering. I’ve chosen to love and forgive those who attempted to harm me, regardless of how they feel about me in return. I’ve chosen to walk out purpose from the pain that I have endured. I’ve chosen to be brutally transparent with the world about who I am and what I’ve experienced. I’ve chosen to embrace who God made me to be (https://melissaohden.com/victim-to-victor/).”
Let us truly be lights in this dark world, loving as Christ loves, no matter the decision of people that we meet, for we were once lost in ourselves, and so we must do all the more to point people back to Jesus, the only Savior and Comforter of the world who calls dead things to life, and people out of darkness into his light. Amen.
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Some more statistics:
Statistics - 2018, 85% of all abortions came from unmarried women. Girls 19 years and younger accounted for 9%. Women 20-29 years old accounted for 57.9% of all abortions. With Women ages 30-39 accounting for 29.5% of abortions.
In 2018 in Florida, which is some of the most up-to-date numbers for reasons given for having an abortion: .01% resulted from incest, .14% happened due to rape, .27% was due to mother’s life endangered, 1% was due to fetal abnormality, 1.48% was due to the health of the mother’s health being threatened, 1.67% the mother’s psychological health being threatened, 20% due to social or economic reasons, 75.4% no reason given.
In other words, .15% were due to either rape or incest, 1% due to the baby not being healthy, 3.42% because of some health problem associated with the mother, 20% due to some social/economic reason most likely not mature/not ready, education, not wanting children, can’t afford, which is the reasons given in other surveys. But then 75.4% no reason given.
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